Akin Gump Advises on Equity Deal of the Year at the IFLR European Awards 2013

Awards & Accolades, &nbspApril 11, 2013

International Financial Law Review (IFLR)

April 11, 2013

(London) – Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is pleased to announce it advised on the Equity Deal of the Year at the International Financial Law Review (IFLR) European Awards 2013 held in London last night.

The firm also advised on the Private Equity Deal of the Year at the IFLR Asia Awards 2013 held in Hong Kong in February. IFLR’s awards are the only awards that recognize legal innovation in international finance.

Akin Gump advised AF Telecom, as the majority shareholder in OAO MegaFon, in relation to MegaFon’s initial public offering (IPO) listed on the London Stock Exchange. (See the firm’s original press release on the deal here.) The IPO raised $1.7 billion, and the company currently has a market capitalization of over $18 billion.

The IPO followed on from the $8.5 billion shareholder restructuring of MegaFon, announced in April 2012, on which Akin Gump also advised.

Varun Gupta, who co-led the Akin Gump team working on this transaction, commented, “This is a highly significant transaction for Russian corporates because it demonstrates that Russian companies can achieve tremendous results in the public markets, even in the current climate.”

He added, “We are proud of our role in the IPO and the pre-IPO shareholder restructuring, which was forward-looking and resulted in the streamlining of the corporate shareholder structure and the introduction of additional corporate governance provisions, both of which contributed significantly to the success of this IPO.”

The team advising AF Telecom was led by Akin Gump Moscow capital markets partner Varun Gupta and London corporate partner Artem Faekov, supported by a team of corporate and capital markets lawyers in the firm’s Moscow and London offices.

Founded in 1945, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 850 attorneys in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.